On his desk sit two thick folders of citizens’ complaints. Before him a roomful of officials are detailing the city’s corruption, anarchy and crumbling infrastructure. Out in the corridor supplicants wait their turn to plead for help. Throughout city hall staff lack education, skills and equipment. Hussein al-Tahaan leans back, takes off his spectacles and rubs his eyes. Life was simpler when his job was to bomb Baghdad, not run it.
The city’s new mayor has had little sleep and is starting a working day which, if he is lucky, will end at around 11pm. If he is unlucky, it will end after midnight. If he is really unlucky, it will end in an explosion or a hail of bullets. Tahaan has inherited arguably the worst job in the world.
No one rules Iraq’s capital. Some bits are controlled by United States and Iraqi troops, others are under the sway of insurgents, and swathes in between are a no man’s land of banditry and decay where up to six million people try to go about their lives. Last week, when rumours of a suicide bomber triggered a stampede, 1 005 Shia pilgrims died, spattering a bridge with blood and the Tigris with corpses. Morgues full, coffers empty, Gotham never had it this bad.
In the 1990s Tahaan was a guerrilla commander who rained rockets on one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. Eight out of nine hit the target, though not the dictator, says the mayor. Now he is a target himself, but the prospect of assassination does not appear to be a concern. ”I am not afraid. My conscience is clear.”
Just one month into the job, the 50-year-old has projected himself as Mr Delivery, a tough administrator who will purge corruption, slash red tape and fix a budget crisis, congestion, pot-holes, untreated sewage and broken lights. The 9 000-strong municipality has to turn things around, he says. ”They want someone to lead them.” A plaque on his desk quotes a proverb from the Qur’an that patience will be rewarded.
Citizens can only hope so. For months Iraq’s leaders, prodded by Washington, have wrestled with a draft Constitution which is supposed to settle fundamental issues such as regional autonomy and the role of Islam. With the national government distracted, the onus has fallen on local government to satisfy Iraqis’ more immediate concerns: electricity, clean water, waste disposal and security.
It is a mission for a steely technocrat. Tahaan certainly sounds like one. And with the pinstriped blue suit, balding head and unflinching gaze, he looks like one. But there are doubts over his suitability, not least in the manner of his elevation. On August 8, accompanied by dozens of armed men, he walked into city hall and declared the incumbent mayor, Alaa al-Tamimi, sacked.
A terrified Tamimi went into hiding, saying Iraq had degenerated into a militia state. ”I was elected. I had dreams. Then I was removed in a coup by gunmen,” he said. ”This is very bad. Acts like these set a dangerous precedent for a country that wants to be democratic.”
Nonsense, says Tahaan. His predecessor, appointed under the US occupation two years ago, was under investigation for corruption and had lost the confidence of the provincial council. As governor of the province of Baghdad Tahaan was asked to double up as acting mayor, a more powerful job than governor, until a permanent mayor was appointed.
The city is now in the hands of a man who claims to be so poor he does not have a generator at home. ”I have nothing. My fridge is empty because I have no electricity.”
Whatever the truth of how he got to be mayor, there is no question that Tahaan’s power stems from his rank as a major-general in the Badr Organisation, the militia of a Shia party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), which is a major player in the national government.
An exiled movement opposed to Saddam, Sciri sided with Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war and launched sporadic attacks against Iraq’s ruler until he fell in 2003. Swept to power in January’s election, the movement’s clerics envisage an Iraqi Islamic state similar to Iran. The Badr militia has been legalised but human rights groups accuse it of intimidation and murder, especially of Arab Sunnis, the minority that is driving the insurgency.
Keen to allay the suspicion of moderate Shias (as well as Sunnis) with a show of good intentions, the mayor allowed The Guardian to shadow him for a day. Fuelled by sweet tea and Pepsi, it was a routine of meetings in his marbled office, orders barked into a cellphone and visits to city hall’s grotty warrens. The figure that emerged was pragmatic and tough, in style more Rudolph Giuliani than Ken Livingstone, whom he had not heard of. If the new administration had skeletons, they stayed in the closet.
A 9am meeting with 11 managers, engineers and other technicians was a catalogue of woes: raw sewage lapping at people’s doors; Humvees smashing up traffic lights and bollards; private security guards sealing off streets without authorisation; market stalls clogging pavements …
Tahaan, owlish behind his long black desk, nodded at proposed solutions and scowled at protestations of impotence. ”Not having a big budget is not an excuse,” he said. Nevertheless, he picked up the phone and arranged to meet a Cabinet minister the next morning to demand the municipality’s unpaid 2005 budget.
Under Saddam deference to authority was obsequious but the mayor snapped at formalities, such as ”if you will allow me”, and urged speakers to get to the point. Told that a suicide attack prompted river police to seal off a street by the Tigris, he groaned. ”Ridiculous, there are only five of them.” A developer wanting to build a mosque instead of a car park? ”I’m not against religion, but we have enough mosques.”
Government offices not taking away their rubbish? ”If they won’t do it we will, but they must pay us.” Unqualified officials appointed through nepotism? ”Fire them. Tell them I made you do it.”
Tahaan was the only person wearing a jacket and tie. His managers dressed casually to hide their seniority from potential assassins. Even so, some said it was too dangerous to visit projects. The mayor reddened. In a track suit, incognito, he ventures out on his own, he said. He raised his voice. ”You must see things for yourself. I will supply guards for you.” The room fell silent. He meant Badr members. Even if a manager survived the field trip his association with Shia gunmen would be marked by Sunnis.
As the officials filed out, supplicants streamed in, a trade union wanting recognition, Kurds wanting a square named after a martyr, a road builder wanting specialised vehicles, and so on, the requests becoming a cascade. Tahaan took a brief break to kneel behind his desk and pray.
Conversation turned to the British. Thanks to their involvement in Iraq in the 1920s they made better occupiers than the hamfisted Americans, he said, sounding wistful. ”But where are you in Baghdad? You are not available.” From his window, smoke can be seen from the scenes of daily bombings. ”In London you change all your rules because of one attack. We can bear it more than you.” It was a statement of resignation, not pride. His city had no alternative.
In the afternoon he toured the planning department, a grim seventh-floor furnace with poor air conditioning and few computers but plenty of ancient folders, carpet stains and shuffled paper. Even here, in the heart of his administration, three armed guards accompanied the boss. Managers looked uneasy when quizzed about the number of staff and what they did.
There was something surreal about the focus on minutiae — which type of sand for potholes, what colour lightbulbs for the park, what width for stalls — when the city outside reeked of death and danger. If the violence escalates to all-out civil war, Baghdad could go the way of Beirut in the 70s, a smouldering ruin of warlords and anarchy. To critics Tahaan and his Badr militia are paving the path to that sectarian nightmare.
The mayor dismisses doom-mongering with a wave of his hand. Baghdad will survive and rise again, he says. He does not speak of a renaissance of the grandeur of old, of the heart of an ancient civilisation, the centre of empire, the capital of the caliphs, the city of a Thousand and One Nights, the locus of Arab nationalism, but to something more pragmatic.
Tahaan says he wants his legacy to be better services which allow people to live with more dignity. It sounds a modest goal but, under the circumstances, the ambition is heroic. Mr Delivery, surrounded by maps of sewers and folders on road maintenance, claps his hands. ”You have to start somewhere.” – Guardian Unlimited Â